East of London
by Tavia
Summary: Gail loved the story of Peter Pan but never could believe in it...until Peter himself turned up, that is. Now she's off to Neverland for all the magic and adventure she ever wanted. No romance, just a lot of fun.


Disclaimer: I don't own Peter. I do own Gail. But…she's about it, in this chapter at least. The rest is J.M. Barrie's.

A/N: I love the book _Peter Pan_ dearly, except that I find Wendy somewhat less than satisfactory as characters go (she spends her time in Neverland _darning socks_, for heavens sake) and that I think there's a lot of questions left unanswered and adventures left unexplored. So I'm setting out to explore some of those adventures and answer some of those questions with a female heroine of my own. Based almost exclusively on the book (though I do make a few changes here and there), this isn't a romance and no one grows up; instead it's a light-hearted series of adventures with the familiar Neverland characters, plus a few of my own for variety. Written for anyone who's ever wanted to fly away with Peter "to always be a little boy (or girl) and have fun."

EAST OF LONDON

Chapter One: To Fly With Peter

Gail wished very much that she could believe in fairies.

Gail was twelve, had mousy brown hair and big brown eyes, and lived in London. Both her parents were dead so she lived with her aunt, who did not want her. No one ever said this aloud, of course, but Gail knew it anyway and she was right. Her aunt felt it was her duty to raise her husband's brother's orphaned child, which entailed feeding, clothing and educating her. Loving the girl never entered into the equation. So she gave Gail three meals a day—not large meals, but three—bought her clothes—not new but serviceable—and sent her to school.

Gail hated school. But she hated it for all the wrong reasons. She did well enough in all her subjects; not remarkable, but well enough. Except for recess. Gail was different, and worse, she was quiet and shy. The other children didn't know what to make of the quiet girl with the big brown eyes and the shabby brown clothes, so they left her alone. Gail never had the nerve to approach them herself, and in time it became accepted that the groups of friends were the way they were, and Gail was not part of any of them. And there is nothing so difficult as working your way into a group that is already formed. A new kid at school has a period where all groups are open to them because they are new and different and therefore interesting. When you're old and different and labeled uninteresting, there's no hope.

The crowded streets of London can be a very lonely place when you live with an aunt who doesn't want you and have no friends to care about you, and so it would have been an immense comfort to believe in fairies. But Gail didn't. Try as she might, she couldn't. There are stories of beliefs persisting through all sorts of hardships and attacks on the believer. Perhaps a belief can't be destroyed with cruelty. It can, however, be destroyed with sheer dullness. The world as Gail knew it was too plain, too dull, to permit the existence of flitting fairies with gossamer wings and magic dust. The world as Gail knew it was quite ordinary, and quite without magic.

Unable to believe in magic, Gail turned to the next best thing. Gail's closest friends were her books. Though she didn't believe the fantastic stories contained on their pages, she loved them all the same. They were her one escape from her drab life into the thrilling and colorful worlds of magic and fantasy. Outwardly her life was lonely, hard, and plain. Inwardly she carried a vivid imagination of stories and comrades and dreams. She had never been to sea, but enjoyed Sinbad's adventures immensely. She had never climbed a mountain or seen a dragon or been in a tornado, but the stories made her feel she had. She had no friends, but felt a close kinship to the characters in her stories.

And thus was Gail's life until one dark night when she awoke at two in the morning with the distinct sensation that someone was watching her. She firmly told herself that ghosts do _not_ exist, and that the only thing to do was to roll over and go back to sleep. Which was what she intended to do, except that right in the middle of rolling over she discovered that there was a truly excellent reason for feeling that someone was watching her. Someone was. A dark, indistinct shape was perched at the foot of her bed.

Gail opened her mouth to scream, and we really can't blame her for it. You can say what you will, but if you woke up at two, in a dark room, with a darker shape looming at the foot of your bed, you would probably scream too. At least in surprise. But Gail's scream never came. In the two seconds it takes to draw in breath for a really good shriek, the shape resolved itself into a boy, who flashed around to the head of the bed and clapped a hand over Gail's mouth.

"What do you want to go and scream for?" he asked scornfully. "You'll wake up the whole house, and some dull grown-up person will come running in and spoil everything."

The simple reasonableness of this convinced Gail that screaming was not, after all, the best option. And besides, by now she'd had a better look at this mysterious figure, and found that there was something in him that inherently made her want to trust him. Certainly, there was nothing frightening in his shock of blond hair and lively blue eyes, or even his queer green clothes, which looked to be made of leaves. That should have been her first clue, but remember that Gail didn't believe the stories she loved so much. Her second clue was the curious feeling that she knew him. She was quite certain he was absolutely unlike any boy she had ever known—which, as she didn't like any of the boys she knew, was actually a point in his favor. But it was also quite odd, as how could she know someone she had never seen before? But whatever the reason, she did feel she knew him, and so, for perhaps the first time in her life, she didn't feel shy. Which maybe should have been another clue.

While she had been looking at the boy, the boy had been looking at her, and decided perhaps she could be trusted now not to scream. So he removed his hand, and awaited developments.

While over her fright, Gail was still not pleased to have had it, and so she reacted with some annoyance. She smoothed down her blanket, and said hotly, "You ought to know better than to sneak into someone's bedroom in the middle of the night and expect them not to be upset."

The boy scratched his head in genuine uncertainty, and asked, "How would I know that?"

"Because…well, you know it now anyway," Gail concluded. "And how did you get in here anyway?"

"The window," the boy said comfortably.

"It's two stories up!"

"So?"

And what response is there to that? Gail had the feeling that she was going about this conversation all wrong, and said so. "We should've started with introductions," she said regretfully.

"Let's start over," the boy suggested, taking an interest in the idea of a proper conversation.

Gail shrugged. "All right. My name is Abigail Johnson. What's yours?"

"Peter Pan," he said proudly.

Gail smiled faintly. "That's impossible."

Peter blinked. "Why?"

"Because you don't exist."

"Do so!"

"Do not."

"Do so!"

"Do not!"

"Do so!"

"Do—" Gail stopped and pressed a palm to her forehead. "I'm arguing with Peter Pan about whether or not he exists. This is _definitely_ a dream."

"Isn't," Peter said, reached forward, and pinched her arm.

"Ow!" Gail jerked her arm away. "What was _that_ for?"

"Isn't a dream," Peter said smugly.

Gail rubbed the injured part, but had to acknowledge, "All right, you're not a dream. But that doesn't mean you're Peter Pan."

Peter tilted his head and looked at her sideways to get a new perspective on things. Sometimes that helped when he was confused, though not this time. "Who else would I be?"

"_I_ don't know, but Peter Pan is a fictional character."

"He's also me," Peter put in.

"Alright. Prove it."

Peter blinked. "How?"

"That's your business to decide. It's _your_ identity."

Peter, on the one hand, was decidedly intrigued by this girl. Few people confused Peter, and even fewer argued with him. But on the other hand, he decided that he had had enough. "Fine," he snapped, "I don't care what you think. You're just a silly little girl anyway."

"I'm not!" Gail said indignantly.

"I'm leaving," Peter announced. Then, quite without intending to do anything remarkable, he pushed off the ground, floated over to the open window, and dove out into the night.

Gail's eyes widened. She pushed the entangling nest of blankets aside, scrambled out of bed, and ran to the window. Hands on the sill, she leaned out as far as she dared. "Peter! Peter, wait! Pet—"

"Yes?"

Gail looked up, and saw Peter looking down from a perch on top of the roof. She stared at him, both stunned and thrilled. "You're you! You're…you're Peter Pan! You really _are_!"

"I told you so."

"You just _flew_!"

To Peter, this was nothing worth commenting on, flying being at least as natural to him as walking. Maybe more so. "Yeah."

"That's _amazing_!"

Peter didn't think it was amazing, but he wasn't going to tell Gail that. This was precisely the kind of talk Peter liked best, when it was applied to him. He decided maybe he'd stay awhile longer, and drifted down from the roof and back into the room, to alight on one of Gail's bedposts. Gail followed, on foot. She sat down on the edge of the bed, and went on staring at him.

"So it's all true then? All of it?" she asked eagerly.

"What is?"

"_Magic_! Fairies and Neverland and flying and pirates and Indians and…" Here her breath and inspiration gave out.

"Of course," Peter said calmly. "Doesn't everyone know that?"

A slow smile spread across Gail face. "Not quite everyone. And it's absolutely the most wonderful thing I've ever heard."

Peter didn't really understand that. There was a lot he didn't understand about this girl, and that left him decidedly interested. "Is it?"

"Yes," she said firmly. And then, because she felt at least as interested as Peter, she asked a question. "But Peter…why _are_ you here, anyway?"

With all the distractions, Peter himself had nearly forgotten that he had had an original purpose in stopping in. "Oh. I was curious, Abigail, because—"

"Call me Gail," she interrupted. Everyone called her Abigail, and she hated it. In her imagination, she was always Gail.

"All right. Y'see, Gail, when I come to London, I always sit outside the bedroom windows, and I listen to the stories. It's a little like fishing," he mused. "Some windows you get lots from, others only a few. But right _here_, I never get _any_. So I got curious. How come your mother never tells you stories?" To be tactful did not occur to him.

"Because I haven't got a mother," Gail said softly.

Peter blinked at her. "Haven't you? I thought practically everybody on the Mainland did."

Gail was familiar enough with the story of _Peter Pan_ to know that "the Mainland" meant, loosely, "not Neverland." She shook her head. "Not me. I'm an orphan."

"That's all right," Peter said, more or less comfortingly. "I haven't got a mother either. But say, who's that old lady you live with?"

"My aunt. My father's brother's widow." Gail took a certain pleasure in knowing that there was no actual blood connection between herself and her legal guardian. It made her aunt's lack of interest in her a bit easier to take. A bit.

"Why doesn't she tell stories?" Peter wanted to know.

"She doesn't believe in them. She considers magical tales to be rank superstition and the telling of them an encouragement towards a life of indolence," Gail recited.

Peter's eyes flashed. There were at least two words there he didn't understand, but the general gist of it he got. "Maybe I'll kill her. Think she'd believe in _that_?"

"Peter!" Gail exclaimed, shocked. "You can't go around killing people! It's not civilized!"

"So?"

"It's not nice either."

Peter conceded on that one. "Oh, all right. I'll leave the old hag alone. But say, you must not know _any_ stories."

The pitying tone in his voice mildly affronted Gail. "I do so," she replied indignantly. "I know all _sorts_ of stories."

"Really," Peter said skeptically. "Where from?"

"Books," Gail said firmly. _That_ is an issue we have already addressed.

"Books? What use are _they_?"

And here Peter made a mistake. As we know, Gail's books were very dear to her heart, and such a comment was a capital offense. Even if it was made by Peter Pan.

She looked at Peter coldly. "_That_ just shows how little _you_ know, _Mister_ Pan."

Peter didn't know quite what to make of this. _No one_ talks like that to Peter Pan. He didn't like it. But he liked even less the feeling that he'd said something wrong. He shifted uncomfortably. "Aw, how am I supposed to know what books are like?" he asked. Gail refused to answer. Peter scratched his head. "Well, I guess you know a lot about books. How about you tell me what they're good for?"

Gail was wise enough and familiar enough with Peter Pan stories to suspect that this was as close a thing to an apology as she'd get. She was right. She relented. "You like stories, don't you, Peter?"

"Of course."

"That's all books are. The good ones, anyway. Stories someone decided to write down."

"Are they really?" Peter asked, interest aroused.

Gail nodded confirmation.

"Have you read lots of books, Gail?"

"Hundreds," Gail said firmly. She meant that literally. She was well known at the library on the corner.

Peter did a somersault in midair. "That's great! You can come to Neverland and tell stories to the Lost Boys…" He paused. "That is, if you'd come."

Gail's eyes were shining. "_Would_ I!"

"I don't know. Would you?"

"Yes!"

Peter grinned. "Great! The Lost Boys like stories too. And it's been a long time since we had a mother."

Gail wondered why she hadn't seen this coming. "Wait a minute. Who said anything about mothers?"

"I just did. Weren't you listening?"

Gail tried to phrase this just right. "But Peter…I don't think I _can_ be anyone's mother. I don't know if I even want to. I'm really just like all the rest of you. I haven't got a mother either, and I'm running away to Neverland. A few years later than the rest, but that's really the only difference."

"But you're a girl," Peter pointed out, a little disturbed at this new line of thinking.

"So?" Gail demanded.

Peter had to concede that he couldn't quite explain what difference it made, exactly. "Maybe you could be an honorary lost boy. A lost girl, who tells stories. How's that?"

Gail beamed. "That's perfect!"

Peter grinned, and jumped to his feet. "So let's go!"

"Just like that?"

Peter was not one to worry about long-term plans. "Sure!"

"Wait, I have to get my books." Gail slid out of bed, picked up a cloth drawstring bag lying on a chair, and went over to the bookshelf. Peter knew better by now than to object.

The titles of the books were just visible in the moonlight pouring in through the window and she knew them all anyway. She also knew she couldn't possibly take every one. Over the years, she had stretched her meager allowance (no one can say her aunt didn't fulfill her duty) to encompass a surprising number of titles. The fact that the library sold used paperbacks for laughably low prices helped. But the issue at hand now was to choose which would be best to take to Neverland._ Arthur Rackham's Fairy Tales_ went in first, followed by all six of her Edith Nesbit books. These were followed by her two _Mary Poppins_ books, but _Around the World in Eighty Days_ was rejected, as was Sherlock Holmes. After a bit of consideration Dickens was left behind as well. She hesitated over her fourteen Oz books, then took _The Scarecrow_ and _Tik-Tok_. She rejected two more science fiction novels, but added _Rinkitink in Oz_. She decided against O. Henry before adding two more books from Oz. She hesitated a long moment over _Peter and Wendy_ and finally put it in, with two more Oz. She went back for _A Christmas Carol_ and, seeing the direction the wind was blowing, put in the remaining seven Oz books. _Glinda of Oz_ just fit in the top. The total made twenty-five.

"Is that too heavy?" she asked, eyeing the bulging bag.

"Not with fairy dust," Peter said.

"Is Tinker Bell here?" Gail asked hopefully, looking around, the thought just now occurring to her.

"Nah, she stayed home. But I brought some." Peter produced a small pouch from among the leaves of his clothes, and poured out a handful of silvery, glittering fairy dust. "A little on the books, a little on you, and away we go." He put actions to words, and hoisted the apparently weightless bag over his shoulder, then looked expectantly at Gail. "Well?"

She looked back. "Well what?"

"Well!" Peter said again and gestured, clearly indicating that she was now to fly.

Gail bent her knees slightly and looked doubtfully at the ground. "Um…how?"

"You just let go."

"Of?"

"The ground."

"Peter, that doesn't really help," Gail said with a somewhat shaky laugh.

"Well, alright then." Peter took Gail by the wrist and led her over to the window. The large, _open_ window.

Gail's eyes widened. "Peter, wait a minute… Peter, what are you going to—"

Peter pushed her.

"PETER!" Gail shrieked as she fell through the air. But only for a few feet. Then instinct or fairy dust kicked in, and she came to a halt in mid-air. She hovered a moment, then, kicking not unlike a swimming stroke, she rose back up to where Peter was turning somersaults in mid-air and laughing gleefully.

"That wasn't funny," she informed him.

"Was," Peter said, grinning cheekily.

Gail found she couldn't really stay mad at him. "It did work," she admitted, and turned an experimental spin.

"Sure. You wouldn't let go of the ground, so we made the ground let go of you."

And somehow, Gail found that that made sense to her. "Now what?"

Peter made an elegant bow (he learned how from the fairies, you know). "Now we fly for Neverland!"

Gail tried to remember that section of _Peter and Wendy_, and found her memory a bit vague. "How long does it take to get to Neverland?" she asked curiously.

"Depends. What time is it?"

"Two, I think."

"Autumn?"

"Yes."

"Five or six hours then," Peter said matter-of-factly.

Gail frowned. "I don't understand."

"It's how you get to Neverland. Second star to the right—"

"—and straight on 'til morning."

Peter grinned. "Exactly. And at this time, this season, morning is four or five hours to the east. Now let's _go_!" Peter turned another somersault, then flitted up and away.

Gail didn't manage flying quite so gracefully, lacking practice, but she soon got her balance, so to speak. Then she flew up into the night, following after the sound of Peter's laughter. And oh, but it was glorious! Rising up, up, gliding through the air far above the rooftops and lighted windows below, feeling utterly removed from the everyday world and all its cares, feeling completely and totally _free_. It gave her a shiver and a tingle that had nothing to do with cold. Gail laughed from the sheer delight of it, unable to resist turning a few spins and twirls. Peter laughed, watching her, but it was a friendly sort of laugh, and she didn't mind in the least.

At first Gail was fairly sure she recognized the city below them. It was London after all, or at least should be, and she had lived there all her life. But soon they left Big Ben and St. Paul's behind, and were passing over sights and places she was certain weren't on any maps of eastern England. Not any maps _she_ knew anyway.

Wondrous sights they were, too. Vast forests that were just brimming with magic, magnificent cities that looked exactly like places in fairy tales. It was night of course, but even by moonlight they were splendid. Perhaps more splendid, as there's no telling what they might have been by daylight. Perhaps not the same places at all. Magic routes are like that, you know.

They left those places behind too, though, as they flew onward and upward, leaving not only the sights but the world behind as well. Instead they were flying through the very night sky itself, soaring through the inky black sky, glittering and glimmering with stars.

Aiming, of course, for the second star to the right. The obvious question to that has always been, for practical sort of children, to the right of _what_? When one actually makes the journey it all becomes clear, as I'm sure you shall find if you are ever in so fortunate a position as to make said journey. They had begun flying east, as the sun rises and morning comes in the east. Gail could only assume they were continuing east now that they were up among the stars. Soon after they left the ground behind, they came upon something Gail was certain no astronomer had ever spotted: a neat, orderly line of stars stretching across the heavens. Gail saw them stretching from horizon to horizon, and in fact they're even longer than that. They stretch right around the earth in one vast ring. They aren't at all noticeable from the ground, but when you're en route to Neverland they're very plain to see, just like bright markers showing the paths through the stars for anyone who cares to follow them. There are four particularly bright stars, one at each point of the compass. The North Star is the only one anyone on the ground has ever realized is significant. Peter and Gail weren't flying north though; they were flying east, you remember, so they saw the East Star. They angled to fly towards the star two stars to the right of the Eastern one—which of course made that the "second star to the right." It's all quite simple really, and Gail almost felt she could have found the way herself. But all the same, she was glad to be flying with Peter, just in case.

And besides, there's nothing quite like flying with Peter. They may have been going straight on 'til morning, but it wasn't a straight line. There were marvelous swoops and dives and soars. There were divergences too, to chase after shooting stars or catch rides on the tails of comets (though the comets didn't appreciate the game and bucked them off rather rudely). It was all delightful fun, and Gail felt that if she had to wake up and find herself in bed right now, the dream would still be enough to keep her cheerful for months to come.

Soon, oh very soon, though it must have been, well, four or five hours, they flew on and into the morning, and the second part of the directions came clear to Gail.

Flying straight till morning didn't quite mean a time _or_ a place, but rather both. First the black night lightened into a sort of pearly dawn, and whether they were flying into an area of dawn or the dawn was coming into being, Gail couldn't have said. The dawn gave way to fingers of pink and orange, pale colors that herald the first bit of the sunrise. These colors grew radiant, stronger, more vivid, until there were fiery reds and oranges, bright, dazzling colors.

Gail found herself surrounded in a brilliant sweep of fiery light and color, and it was all far brighter than she was entirely comfortable with. Flying through the diamond-studded black velvet of night was one thing. Flying into the brilliance of morning was something else entirely.

Almost unconsciously she slowed and came to a stop, hovering. She squinted into the light, which was bordering on the intensity of looking at the sun.

"Peter?" she called uncertainly, hating the tremulous note in her voice and knowing she couldn't help it.

She couldn't see Peter against the light but heard him from somewhere farther ahead. "Come _on_, Gail! We're nearly there now!"

Gail pursed her lips, plucked up her courage, and flew after Peter's voice.

The light, if anything, grew stronger. Too strong, and she knew it _must_ erupt into flames at any moment—and there it was, just the tiniest glimpse of what, perhaps, was the lagoon, and then she just _had_ to shut her eyes and even through her closed lids it was flaming red.

And then, very suddenly, the light was gone. She cautiously opened her eyes. They had flown straight till morning and straight on through and beyond it. Glancing over her shoulder she could see the sunrise just behind. And beyond and in front of her…it was just exactly how she'd imagined it.

A glittering blue-green sea stretched out to the horizon (and she had a suspicion it really _did_ stretch to the horizon which was a tangible and real place), with a scattering of fluffy white clouds overhead. Flitting through them was Peter. And below, nestled in the blue waves, was Neverland.

A/N the 2nd: I do own something else; I own the explanation of "second star to the right and straight on till morning." Having been a practical sort of child, I never did quite understand that line. That's all I have to say for now, will try to get another chapter soon, please review and tell me what you think!


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